Christchurch guide
The best pizza in Christchurch
Christchurch takes its pizza seriously — and in a few directions at once. There's proper Neapolitan with a 30-hour dough, thin woodfired pies out of the oven in minutes, the loaded Kiwi gourmet style the city grew up on, and the long-running Italian rooms where the wood-fired oven's been lit for decades.
18 of them across the city — a good run through the Central City and out to the beach at Sumner, over the hill in Lyttelton, and dotted through Sydenham, Beckenham, Papanui and Woolston. Sit-down pizzerias, food-hall counters and a couple worth the drive alike.
The best Neapolitan spots cap their dough and fill fast, so book ahead if you've your heart set on one. Everywhere else, a woodfired pizza is about the quickest good dinner in town — grab a slice and a seat, or take a box home.
Venue data checked weekly · Updated September 2026
The picks
- 01Bomba Pizza Napoletana · Restaurant · Lyttelton
Proper Neapolitan pizza in Lyttelton — '00' flour, 30-hour fermented dough, hand-opened and woodfired to a soft, blistered crust.
- 02Base Woodfired Pizza · Restaurant · Central City
Woodfired pizza at Riverside — blistered, thin-based and out of the oven in minutes.
- 03Arbour Woodfired Pizza and Bar · Restaurant · Lyttelton
Artisan woodfired pizza on Oxford Street, Lyttelton — a sharing menu, local brews and a community 'home away from home' feel.
- 04Fire And Slice Woodfired Pizzeria · Restaurant · SumnerBib Gourmand
Woodfired pizza in Sumner from Pal Singh's team — it all starts with the dough, topped with fresh, mostly-local Canterbury ingredients.
- 05A'mano · Restaurant · Central CityBib Gourmand
Handmade Italian on Lichfield Street — the name means ‘by hand’, and it shows in the pasta, focaccia and sourdough pizza made fresh daily.
- 06Spagalimis Pizzeria Restaurant and Bar · Restaurant · Central City
A Christchurch pizza stalwart, handcrafting pies since 1978 and still going strong.
- 07Winnie Bagoes City - Pizza Bar · Restaurant · Central City
Gourmet pizza that's been a Welles Street fixture for 20-odd years — generous, inventive pies, with gluten-free, vegan and veg all covered.
- 08Winnie Bagoes Ferrymead · Restaurant · Ferrymead
The Ferrymead branch of Winnie Bagoes — legendary Kiwi gourmet pizzas going 20-plus years, with a funky fit-out and a full bar.
- 09Cafe Valentino · Restaurant · Central City
A long-running St Asaph Street Italian with a wood-fired oven at its heart — pizza and pasta, house-made desserts, the generous old-school kind of cooking.
- 10Tutto Bene · Restaurant · St Albans
A long-established Italian on Papanui Road, going more than two decades — wood-fired pizza, pasta and antipasti, sticking to what matters as trends come and go.
+ 8 more on the map below ↓
Keep exploring
Common questions
- Where's the best pizza in Christchurch?
- A few to start with: Bomba Pizza Napoletana, Base Woodfired Pizza, Arbour Woodfired Pizza and Bar, Fire And Slice Woodfired Pizzeria, A'mano. It runs from proper Neapolitan and thin woodfired pies to the long-running Kiwi gourmet-pizza institutions — we've kept it to the places where the pizza is genuinely the thing, not the bars with a pizza tacked onto the menu.
- What's the difference — Neapolitan, woodfired or gourmet?
- Bomba in Lyttelton is the one for genuine Neapolitan: '00' flour, a 30-hour dough and a soft, blistered crust, with the daily dough capped so it's worth booking ahead. Woodfired is the broader camp — thin, fast and charred, done at Base, Fire & Slice and Arbour among others. And the Kiwi 'gourmet' style Winnie Bagoes and Spagalimis built their name on is the loaded, generous pie most Cantabrians grew up on.
- Which are the Christchurch pizza institutions?
- Spagalimis has been handcrafting pies since 1978, and Winnie Bagoes has been a Welles Street gourmet-pizza fixture for over 20 years, with a Ferrymead branch too. Tutto Bene on Papanui Road and Cafe Valentino on St Asaph Street are the long-serving Italian rooms where the wood-fired oven's been going for decades.
- Where can you get gluten-free, vegan or halal pizza?
- Well covered — Winnie Bagoes does gluten-free, vegan and veg across the board, BeePizzeria in Papanui is 100% halal with vegan and gluten-free bases too, and Formaggio's in Sydenham runs a proper plant-based menu alongside the Italian.
- Anywhere good for pizza away from the central city?
- Plenty — Bomba and Arbour over the hill in Lyttelton, Fire & Slice at the beach in Sumner, Formaggio's in Sydenham, The Birdwood in Beckenham, and Cassels at The Tannery in Woolston, where the wood-fired pizza comes with beer brewed on site.